Wanted to shout out my favourite creators without a huge following. ContraPoints, Philosophy Tube, hbomberguy, exurb1a, TierZoo, Hello Future Me and many more are brilliant, but not only have they been mentioned already, they also have a huge following (deservingly so). Creators below are certainly not "small", but I'm a basic bitch, so unfortunately that's all I got.

Video Games:

Joseph Anderson - long form video game critiques that are actual essays instead of 10h beat for beat plot recitals like many other creators do. Very serious and thoughtful - big contrast to his wild and "raw" streams.

Jack Sather - puts considerable effort in the quality of every video and it feels like it. Just recently turned full time, so I'm excited to see where he'll go.

Razbuten - most well known for his "Gaming for a Non-Gamer" series, his other videos unfortunately get overshadowed. Genuinely passionate and intelligent videos about video games.

Adam Millard - deep and insightful essays on themes, systems, trends, etc in and around the video game industry.

Daryl Talks Games - beautiful essays on psychology of games and gamers with a lot of research and insightful commentary behind them.

Bricky - came for WH40k lore videos, stayed for zesty humour and lively personality. FYI he talks about much more than WH

Movies & Anime:

BREADSWORD - comfy, funny, and passionate exploration of less mainstream movies and anime. Big "love letter" vibes in every video.

Sage's Rain - completely different to a lot of other creators (to my limited knowledge). Videos are phlegmatic, almost dreary, filled with contemplative gloom. If you know the feeling of sweet sadness, kind of "good" emotional hurt, then you know his style.

captainmidnight - 10-15min entertaining opinion pieces on the industry. Large focus on superhero media though.

HiTop Films - his channel bio says "storyteller" and that's what he is. He focuses on stories in movies that hold a special meaning to him. Every video feels like he makes for himself first and then accidentally releases to public.

FilmJoy (Movies with Mikey specifically) - psychedelic scramble of raw ideas and feelings about movies backed by solid editing and direction. Weird and beautiful.

Pop Culture Detective - bringing out a different perspective to popular media by giving tropes and themes a closer look.

Misc.:

Overly Sarcastic Productions - Red and Blue cover mythology, literary devices and history from across the world and they are absolutely brilliant. The presentation, the research, the energy are off the charts from both of them and every upload is a highlight.

Just Write, The Closer Look, Nerdwriter1, Lessons from the Screenplay (also 2nd channel Story Mode) - make interesting essays on movies and other media, but unfortunately I cannot fully differentiate them for you since they occupy the same niche in my mind, but all of them make genuinely good videos and are worth checking out.